BEYOND THE HEDGES: Study ranks doctoral programs

by Felisa Yang

A report released last week by the National Research Council assessed and ranked doctoral programs in 41 fields. The report, entitled Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States: Continuity and Change , examined the quality and effectiveness of 3,634 programs at 274 universities.

The last such report was issued by the NRC in 1982. The current report has been in the works for four years.

Consistently top-ranked schools, such as Harvard, Princeton and Stanford Universities and the University of California at Berkeley, continued to hold their high rankings in the study.

The 740-page report examines programs in five general areas: arts and humanities, engineering, physical sciences and mathematics, social and behavioral sciences and biological sciences.

The assessments were made by nearly 8,000 graduate-faculty members of the various schools. The respondents were given a survey form with up to 50 programs in their fields, selected at random from a list of participating programs.

They were asked to rate programs on two criteria -- the "scholarship quality" of the faculty and the "effectiveness of the program in educating research scholars/scientists."

The NRC said that a graduate program's reputation does not tell "whether it offers a nurturing environment for students or if the job placement experiences of its graduates are satisfactory."

Rice fared well in the sciences and engineering disciplines.

The computer science program ranked 19th in a field of 108 programs and tied for 21st in chemical engineering with the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, out of 93 programs.

The engineering programs ranked in at least the top third of the field consistently, while the physical and biological sciences did better, ranking in the top fourth more or less consistently.

Tables from the report are available on the NRC's World-Wide Web homepage at "http://www.nas.edu".

Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 22.

This item appeared in the News section of the September 29, 1995 issue.

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